Mystery of Taliban chiefs deepens

Baitullah Mehsud has been blamed for suicide attacks on Western forces

Confusion surrounds the leadership of the Taliban in Pakistan after reports of a gun battle between potential successors to leader Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistani officials have said they had "credible evidence" that Baitullah Mehsud had died in a US drone attack.

But a senior Taliban commander, Hakimullah Mehsud, contacted the BBC to say his chief was alive and well.

Now officials in Islamabad say Hakimullah was himself one of those killed in a fight over succession.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool, in Islamabad, says the situation is very unclear and information is based on rumours from deep inside militant territory in north-west Pakistan.

The US and Pakistani governments say their intelligence suggests Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US rocket attack on Wednesday.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the BBC that they had received reports that a meeting of Taliban commanders in South Waziristan, called to decide on the movement's new leadership, turned into a gunbattle.

The unconfirmed reports say that Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, was killed.

The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud

However, Hakimullah Mehsud had earlier contacted the BBC to say his chief was still alive.

Mr Malik said the other Taliban leader allegedly involved in the shootout was Waliur Rehman.

He challenged the Taliban to prove its leaders are still alive.

But Taliban commanders have dismissed the challenge as a ploy to flush them out into the open.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for a Taliban group that was opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Saifullah Mehsud, said Baitullah's supporters were turning on one another in the struggle to find a new leader.

"Differences have arisen between the followers of Baitullah, that is why they are claiming that he is not dead," he said.

"The 'Shura' (party leaders) are at loggerheads with one another. This is going to grow in the coming days. God willing, the infighting will get worse."

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